Nine Liars (Truly Devious, #5)(72)

“I read that,” Peter said, perking up. “My daughter loved it, wanted me to read it. So I did.”

He did not, Stevie noticed, say he loved it. That didn’t mean he hadn’t liked it. But Stevie had spent enough time around Nate to know now that if someone read his book and didn’t specifically say they liked it, then he assumed they hated it. It would be worse if they said they liked it. If that had happened, Nate would have crawled into the fireplace and set himself on fire. Writers were weird. Talking to them was like talking to spiders—the mere breath of speech sent them running.

Nate began shoveling sticky toffee pudding into his mouth. They moved on to Janelle, discussing her engineering skills, the machines she made, her Rube Goldberg entries. Vi talked about becoming a translator.

“And what do you do, David?” Yash asked.

David nodded. “As little as possible,” he said, taking a sip of red wine. It was a glib reply, but everyone gave it a polite laugh and Sebastian toasted him with a glass of water. “I have learned a lot since I’ve been here, though. Like about the Salmon Act 1986. It’s illegal to handle salmon . . .”

“. . . in a suspicious manner,” Yash and Peter said, almost in unison.

“We write jokes for a news show called Fish in a Barrel,” Peter explained. “It’s our job to know stupid laws about fish.”

“There are more than you would think,” Yash added.

Stevie didn’t like how that conversation had gone down. David was smart. David could program. David studied international relations here and had volunteered for a voting rights organization at home, but he didn’t quite have a thing like the rest of them did. And he joked about it, but she saw him shift a little in the chair. The smile was thin. She was about to say something about all the volunteer work he had done over the summer, but there was a sound in the hallway. Someone was coming into the house.

Everyone at the table straightened up.

“Jules,” Sooz said, pushing back her chair.

A minute later, a man entered the dining room. Well, other people entered rooms—Julian Reynolds changed their spatial orientation. All chairs, eyes, and energies magnetically pointed toward him.

His hair was the color of beach sand, with an elegant soft gray on the sides. He was immaculately dressed in gray pants and a royal-blue shirt that he must have known brought out the color of his eyes. Stevie had read the phrase “piercing blue eyes” many times and never knew why eyes would be described that way. Eyes are notoriously round and squishy and would burst like a water balloon if deployed as a weapon. Julian’s were blue like pool water, and just as clear. They invited you to dive in and examine their depths. You were in the wordless, intimate conversation that comes with making such strong eye contact with a stranger. You were hooked.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, gracefully removing his camel-colored coat. “I had surgery this evening.”

Debbie hustled over to disappear the coat, and all the Nine got up to greet their friend.

“You know Isabelle, Ange’s niece,” Sebastian said. “And these are her American friends.”

He said all of this like they’d been friends for life—as if he’d been waiting for the moment where he could introduce them.

“Can I bring you a plate of food?” Debbie asked. “It’s still warm. Sausage and mash, and some soup?”

“I had a sandwich on the train, thank you,” he said. “But a pudding would be lovely, and some coffee. I have some things I’d like to discuss.”

“Why don’t we go through to the sitting room?” Sebastian said. “We’ll have coffee in there by the fire.”

Everyone made their way out of the dining room and into the main hall.

“I think they want to talk,” Janelle said in a quiet voice. “We’re going to go upstairs.”

“I think that’s the move,” David added.

Everyone in Stevie’s contingent made their way toward the staircase, though Stevie wanted to go in and find out what was going on. Luckily, Izzy wanted the same.

“Stevie,” Izzy said, “could you come? I think it would be helpful.”

Nate gave Stevie a pointed look before turning and heading upstairs.

“Did he just say he had surgery?” Stevie asked before they stepped into the sitting room.

“Oh. He’s an MP. When they have public hours that constituents can come in and talk—that’s called surgery.”

Nothing made any sense here.

It was dark now. The fire had been replenished with wood. Sebastian drew the heavy curtains against the night as Debbie came in with a tray of coffee and tea and a pudding for Julian. She set it down on an ottoman.

“That’s all for tonight, Debs,” Sebastian said. “Thanks so much for pitching in.”

“Is one of these soya or oat milk?” Sooz asked, looking at the tiny jugs on the coffee tray.

“That one with the roses on it is plant-based,” Sebastian said, reaching forward to pass it to Sooz. There were only so many times that someone could say the words plant-based before they lost all meaning.

“I’ve been in touch with the police,” Julian said, pouring himself a coffee. “I spoke to them on the way here. I’ve got some information. CCTV shows Ange leaving her house right around ten that evening. She used her Oyster card and took the Tube to Waterloo. She tapped out of the station at ten fifty-five. There’s footage of her leaving the station, but it was raining and she put up an umbrella, so it becomes hard to follow her.”